A Storied Gramercy Park Home Gets a Polished Update

Rounding the sun-dappled southeast corner of Gramercy Park, you might be too distracted by the expertly manicured flower beds to take much notice of the hunk of a red brick building across the street. But CeCe Barfield, the former senior designer at Bunny Williams and now principal at her eponymous firm, knows an architectural gem when she sees one. Newly wed in 2014, she and her husband were prepared to be patient in their hunt for the perfect Gramercy Park apartment—but just two months into their search a two-bedroom became available in the brick building at 34 Gramercy Park East. A master's in historic preservation from Pratt under her belt, CeCe knew the Queen Anne marvel immediately. "It's one of the oldest on the park, and supposedly the oldest co-op in New York City," she says. They snatched it up.

It wasn't all roses, of course. "There isn’t a formal entry, which was something we worried about," she recalls, but they quickly came to love the long hallway that spills forward from the front door, bedrooms cropping out to the left and right. "There's something so elegant about it. It draws you in, makes the space feel bigger," she says. A coat of white Venetian plaster, with its reflective finish, helps the little bit of natural light bounce around the corridor. The front door was painted green ("so you'd know it was there!" she says with a laugh).

Thankfully, CeCe reports, the tenant before them "had a great eye," having kept the original 1883 molding and architectural details intact—so they didn't need to completely rework the interior. She focused instead on bringing it up to date and brightening some dark rooms. A cherrywood kitchen, for instance, begged for a new look, so CeCe—having no interest in moving walls or tearing up floors, which would require getting permission from (and therefore waiting out) the co-op board—got creative. They glued attractive laminate flooring down on top of the old, painted the cabinets two shades of green, resealed and restained most of the butcher block counter, replaced knobs, and regrouted the tile. An overhaul, yes, but hardly a major renovation. The pendant light, which they kept, had been installed two owners ago but looks infinitely more modern in its current setup.

In the living room, books they've read and used for work line the built-in shelves, and most of the furniture isn't new: The side tables were a gift from her mom in college, and the sofa came from their last apartment (they re-covered it). New striped draperies in a beloved Clarence House fabric give the illusion of wider windows—a thoughtful custom touch that pulls together the "collected and continental" look she was aiming for. As CeCe says, "it's just about perspective and how you frame things."

When former Bunny Williams designer CeCe Barfield updated this 1883 coop on the corner of Gramercy Park, she had but one concern. "There isn’t a formal entry, which was something we worried about," she says, but after a coat of white Venetian plaster to help bounce light around the space, she came around: "There's something so elegant about it. It draws you in, makes the space feel bigger."

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